


When Words Are Inadequate

by Poemsingreenink



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4725437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Sam does is buy him a sketch book. Not betaed. Mistakes mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not digging this title. Feel free to suggest something else.

All Sam did was buy him a sketch book.

It wasn’t even a fancy sketchbook. Like one of those leather wrapped things you bought at Barnes and Noble that had “Handcrafted in Italy” stamped on the back. It cost him $5.68 and he'd found it at the Walgreens he passed on the way to the hospital. He hadn’t even sprung for one of those fancy ballpoint pens or colored pencils to go with it. Actually, Sam had entirely forgotten about pencils, and the one he handed to Steve was a five inch tall #2 he had in his pocket from the VA.

(And when the hell had he started carrying pencils? When did he ever use pencils anymore?)

But Steve beamed at him from his hospital bed. Legitimately beamed, and not for the first time Sam found himself grinning right back, and feeling as though he were sitting in a patch of sunlight.

“Can I draw you?” Steve asked.

Sam swallowed, and then nodded.

Oh god. He was in so much trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Involves discussion of Peggy and Steve.

If Sam went back in time and informed his 13-year-old self that one day he would be wining and dining Captain America, his 13-year-old self definitely would have believed him. In fact, his 13-year-old self probably would have high-fived him (or maybe fist-bumped him…when had he started fist-bumping people exactly?), and then handed over a detailed list of the best ways to go about wining and dining a national icon.

(God he’d been an insufferable teenager. How had his mother weathered it?)

But as good as some of 13-year-old Sam’s ideas would have been they couldn’t hold a candle to what adult Sam had in store. (Wait? Was he an insufferable adult?…..nah). Because adult Sam was in the possession of The List.

No Howling Commando biography, no Smithsonian exhibit and no Oscar winning Captain America movie (of which there were three) was in possession of the Steve Rogers List of Things I Need To Research To Understand The Future. Sam had three copies on his person, and that didn’t even count the one stored on his phone. 

Getting a copy of it hadn’t even been hard. All he’d done was wait until Steve inevitably pulled it out of his pocket (This time to add “Freddy Krueger”) and then said, “Hey, man. Let me see that thing.”

Which is how they ended up in a Tai restaurant in Chicago, with Steve working his way through a dish of pad kee mow after an appetizer of salapao. Sure, Sam had practically needed to put Steve in a headlock and drag him inside, but he’d still gotten Steve to take a break from hop-scotching across the country chasing a ghost so Sam counted it as a win.

“It’s really good!” Steve gushed, mouth still full of noodles. “Just, really really good!”

His eyes darted to the pot of green tea Sam had ordered, and Sam refilled the cup and slid it across the table.

“Here Mr. Bad Table Manners. Stop batting your baby blues at me. Try the green tea.”

The small cup looked ridiculous cradled in Steve’s large hands, and he smiled sheepishly at Sam before taking a tentative sip.

“And?” Sam asked.

“It’s different,” Steve said, sliding the cup back. “I don’t know. I was never a big tea drinker. Not like Peggy.”

“English lady liking tea?” Sam said. “I don’t believe it.”

Steve motioned to the tea pot. “Do you put anything in it? Peggy, she liked sugar in her tea, but we never had any sugar so she never got to drink it the way she wanted.”

Steve’s shoulders slumped, and his focus drifted to whatever memory had joined them for dinner.  
Sam leaned across the table and gently tapped Steve’s hand. It got his attention real quick, and Steve’s mouth was open an apology ready to slip out when Sam spoke.

“You know, all that stuff in the Smithsonian, and there’s practically nothing there about Peggy Carter. A video of her talking about you, a copy of a really bad radio play and a couple of photos. But most of the world just remembers her as your war flame.”

The ghosts of the past were quickly exorcised by the indignation that flooded Steve’s eyes.

“Peggy Carter-”

“Took her tea with sugar, even though it was WWII and sugar was rarer than gold, which makes me wonder how you knew that,” Sam said. He tapped the top of Steve’s hand again, leaving his fingers there to rest against the warm skin. “Fuck the Smithsonian. Tell me about Peggy Carter’s sweet tooth.”

It was fun, seeing Steve’s shocked face. His eyebrows could get really high. It made Sam want to kiss him, but a lot of things did that. Steve’s hand shifted underneath Sam’s, but before Sam could move away, worried he’d overstepped, Steve carefully interlocked their fingers. 

“She’d only play poker if one of us threw a chocolate bar in,” Steve said. “But she wasn’t very good at cards so she was always losing hers in the process.”

“Bet you tried to give her your share,” Sam said.

Steve snorted. “She’d never take them! Drove me crazy.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “People we care about tend to do that.”


	3. Rhythm and Melody

Sam hated the song “Marvin Gaye”. Hated it with a fire so fierce it burned in the marrow of his bones, and to a degree that probably wasn’t healthy for a full grown man.

If he wanted to get it on he didn’t need the spirit of Marvin Gaye invoked like the patron saint of fucking in a song that was going to get played at the end of every high school dance for the next year. He needed actual Marvin Gaye music. Sung by Marvin Gaye. To suggest anything else was just insulting. 

Steve loved it because of course he did. Sung it right into Sam’s ear as he spun him across the living room. Sam let him because he was a big giant sucker. Rolled his eyes, but still let Steve dip him at the line “Oh there’s loving in your eyes that pulls me close.” 

It was okay. Steve couldn’t help it if he had horrible taste in music. He’d missed out on so much good music, was so starved for the rhythm and melody of the universe that he’d listen to anything.

Sam could fix this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually really like this song, but I also really like the idea of music snob Sam. "No Steve! Don't listen to that! Listen to this!"
> 
> Here's a link in case you don't know what I'm talking about. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igNVdlXhKcI


End file.
